Thirty Dates
by RainbowSerenity
Summary: /AkuRoku/ Written for LJ community 30dates. When Roxas accidentally costs Axel his job...it was an accident! Really!... Axel devises a strange way for the blond to make it up to him...thirty dates, each one more headache inducing than the last. Joy.
1. First Date

Aaaand welcome to my new laughable source of entertainment! xD This piece of madness is written for the Livejournal community 30(underscore)dates. I figured I could torture our favorite Organization couple for awhile. ;D

Expect this to be a bit on the cracky side; that is, some unbelievable material and maybe even some silly clichés thrown in there. What can I say? I am the self-proclaimed Queen of Clichés. 8D

But enough of this! Enjoy, my fellow human wormbabies. 8D

--

**First Date**

**_Saturday, June 30_**

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, okay, that was a total lie – it was a relatively sunny day (especially for Twilight Town) and Roxas had been enjoying his first free weekend all summer. After _it_ had happened, though, the whole sunshiney-ness of the day just seemed to melt. In fact, the whole month ahead seemed rather dark and gloomy.

'Why?' you may ask.

Well, it's a very good reason – at least in Roxas' head. See, it all began like this...

As said, it was a relatively sunny day in quaint little Twilight Town. Roxas was basking in his free weekend because Saturday meant that ice cream was half-off at the nearby parlor. Roxas looooved ice cream and the fact that it was half price meant he could get twice as much for the same price. Heck yes! Ice cream was just so darn good. It was Roxas' favorite food and he totally wouldn't give it up for anything. Well, except maybe world peace or something important like that.

There was only one thing Roxas hated (gasp) about the ice cream parlor:

Axel.

_Axel._ Ugh. Just _thinking_ the name made Roxas shudder. The tall, lanky redhead had worked at Roxas's precious ice cream parlor since possibly the Stone Age...or at least since his freshman year. He would've been just another employee to the blond, except for one thing:

He had a huge crush on Roxas.

No, wait – _enormous_ crush. Gargantuan. Massive. Whatever was biggest, plus five and multiplied by two.

And while this certainly had its perks – Axel always gave him double servings and extra toppings on his sundaes – it was mostly just maddening. Roxas had nothing against homosexual relationships, but he certainly didn't want to be in one himself. Roxas did not like the penis – well, except his own. Oh man, that sounded wrong. Moving on...

There was also the fact that their personalities clashed horribly. Roxas was fairly quiet and just liked hanging out with one group of friends while Axel was obnoxious and seemed to have a new best friend every day. See, the blond wouldn't be able to get along with someone so smug. He and Axel would eventually explode from shooting sarcastic remarks at each other, and nobody wants that. Right? Right.

The redhead never seemed to realize this, however, and hit on Roxas every chance he got in a terribly clichéd fashion – complimenting his hair, using bad pickup lines, the works. It was very annoying in a similarly clichéd fashion.

So on this relatively sunny day in Twilight Town, Roxas found himself face-to-face with his redheaded nemesis. And on half-off day, too. Sigh. He was there with Olette, one of his best friends, and someone had Axel narrowed his eyes at upon their arrival in the store. Everyone thought that Roxas and Olette were together. Roxas always had a nice reply for those who asked if it was true – "HA-HA-HA no." Dating Olette would be like dating his sister. Roxas was totally not for any kind of incest.

Axel, of course, still looked pissed. "Welcome to Lickety-Split," he greeted, smiling rather gaily at Roxas and frowning at Olette. Roxas rolled his eyes. "How may I help you?"

Roxas nodded to Olette, indicating that she could order first. Axel rang up her double scoop of chocolate with hot fudge without taking his eyes off of Roxas. The blond frowned and just ordered his triple scoop of sea-salt ice cream in a giant waffle cone. "And not too frozen," he added.

"I'll see what I can do." Axel winked. Nobody should wink at the ice cream customers! See, this was why Axel annoyed the blond so much. Winking over the ice cream counter...hmph. But moving along...

It should be noted here that Roxas had a rather odd taste for his ice cream – he never liked it too cold. Frozen hard ice cream gave him too many headaches since he ate it so darn fast, and Twilight Town was never warm enough to melt his cones fast enough, so he had taken to carrying a lighter with him to speed up the process. Strange, yes, but it worked. It was also handy for when he and Hayner were feeling stupid and tried to light their farts on fire.

When Axel had mysteriously figured this out, he also stared using a lighter to melt Roxas's ice cream. But he was a crazy pyro, so he could've had that lighter for _any_ reason.

Axel got their orders quickly, but had a worried look on his face when he delivered them to the front counter. "I lost my lighter, Roxas," he whispered, looking positively petrified. What if Roxas stopped coming to eat ice cream because of it? Axel couldn't have that! He loooved seeing Roxas. He loved it almost as much as he loved fire, which was a lot.

Roxas shrugged, not really paying attention. That ice cream looked so tempting, so..._delicious._ He refrained from drooling. "It's okay. I'll just melt it here, if that's alright."

"Sure." Axel looked totally giddy at the idea.

Something inside of Roxas suddenly screamed, "RUN FAR, FAAAAAR AWAY! LEAVE THE ICE CREAM BEHIND IF YOU HAVE TOOOOO!"

Roxas snorted. Leave behind his half-priced cone? _Never!_ He whipped out his lighter and flicked on the flame, watching Axel's eyes light up in a very creepy fashion. The blond held the lighter juuust close enough to his ice cream...

To this day, he still couldn't figure out how it really happened. One moment the lighter was in his hands, then someone in the back room had called for Axel. The redhead's elbow knocked into Roxas's arm and poof, his cone was on the floor and the cash register was on fire.

Olette screamed and the owner of the parlor started whacking the flames with a tray before another employee got out the fire extinguisher, but all Roxas could think was, _'Crap, will they give me a free cone since I dropped mine?'_

The smell of burning metal snapped him out of it. Axel, the employee with the extinguisher, and the owner were staring at the lump of charred former register in horror. Luckily after some searching, it was found that the money had been unaffected.

The owner turned to Axel, his face red with anger. "AXEL, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I WARNED YOU ABOUT THAT LIGHTER!?"

"But Vexen-!"

"THIS HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH! YOU'RE FIRED!"

"What!?"

"GET OUT OF MY SIGHT!!"

Axel whipped off the girly-looking apron he'd been wearing and raced out of there. Roxas just stood there with his mouth open – he was really confused – until Olette pulled his arm. "C'mon."

"Huh? Where?"

"You need to apologize to Axel and tell him you'll help him get his job back! That fire was _your_ fault!"

"Yeah, but – what!?" Roxas was still mourning over his lost ice cream and could barely think. Olette just pulled him out of the parlor with a confused look on his face.

Axel hadn't gotten very far from the crazy scene. He was sitting on the sidewalk near the parlor, his face buried in his hands. Olette pulled Roxas towards him.

"Axel?"

The redhead looked up, his face rather blank. Roxas gulped. _'Was that me who said his name? Arguh.'_ He needed to learn to control his mouth. Thank goodness Axel couldn't hear his thoughts, or he would've had a very perverted comment for that whole 'mouth controlling' business.

"You cost me my job," Axel muttered.

"I'm sorry," Roxas sighed. Why was he doing this again? Axel no longer working at Lickey-Split would probably mean a much more pleasant ice cream experience (despite the lack of free double toppings and servings) from now on. There wouldn't be any creepy green eyes watching his every move, which was always a bonus in his book.

"It's-"

"Is there anything we can do?" Olette interrupted. "Roxas can help you talk to your manager when he calms down, if you'd like."

_'Olette, shut up,'_ Roxas thought. Axel actually looked pretty okay with being jobless. Either way, it was the redhead's problem. Why were they even here?

"Welllllll..." Axel stretched out the word like a rubber band. Roxas frowned. "I doubt Vexen will take me back. He hates my guts."

_'So do I, now that you won't be able to give me double servings of ice cream.'_

_"But_ there _is_ something you can do to help me through my unemployment, _Roxas_."

The blond got a very bad feeling in his gut. "...What?"

Axel grinned a sneaky grin. It kind of reminded Roxas of that scene in 'The Grinch' when that fuzzy green Who had gotten a 'horrible, _awful_ idea'. Well, at least Axel couldn't take over Christmas or something equally terrible...

"You go on one date a day for the next month – with me. And if you don't, I can make sure you're not served any ice cream within a hundred miles of here i _ever_ /i again."

Roxas gulped. Okay, this was _way _worse than Christmas being taken over. Axel was probably bluffing – but then again, he _had_ been in the ice cream business up until ten minutes ago. Plus, he knew so many people...

"I think that sounds fair," Olette said. She was trying not to laugh. "Roxas?"

Roxas suddenly realized that if he agreed to this, he would have to spend time with the redhead _every single day_ for a freaking _month_ - and he couldn't back out because Olette was a witness. She would _never_ let him out of it.

Axel must've realized this, because his grin grew even more freakishly happy (and slight creepy). Damn him!

The blond sighed. He had to do this at the risk of losing ice cream, his favorite treat _ever_. And besides, it couldn't be _that_ bad, right? It was only for a month...

"Deal," Roxas said, holding out his hand. "And today counts as one, since I had to look at your stupid face." Axel nodded and shook the offered hand, his grip tight, but not overly so. It was...just right.

"First date," Axel grinned.

In the distance, a roll of thunder rumbled – ah, here comes that dark and stormy night. Roxas shivered. That couldn't mean _anything_ good...

It was going to be a _long_ month.

--

A 'long month' indeed considering writing all of these themes will probably take me two years. Meep. –falls over-

Happy AkuRoku day! 8D And if you liked this, hated it, or just kind of want to chop my hands off so I can write anymore madness, please leave a **review. **Reviewers get cookies, and everybody loves cookies. Well, unless you have like, a million of them. I definitely don't have a million cookies, so don't worry about that. –rambles-

Erm, yes. Reviews are lovely and will be squealed at like the yaoi fangirl I am. :3


	2. Date Two: The Movies

HEY YOU GUYZ.

Erm...well, I had hoped to get this out a bit faster than this, but my hard drive went boom and we had to get a new one. It's very shiny. And quiet. It's a bit unsettling at night. –flails-

BUT ANYWAY!

Enjoy some more madness. :D Torturing Roxas is way too much fun. They should make it some kind of fangirl sport. "TORTURE ROXAS DAY. SEE HOW MANY INNUENDOS YOU CAN FIND!"

Enjoy. 8D

**Date Two: The Movies  
_Sunday, July 1_**

Roxas woke up that morning with a feeling of doom rotting in his stomach. Doom, doom, doooom. At first he couldn't figure out why. Had he forgotten to complete some homework assignment? No, wait, it was summer. Duh. Had he eaten a bad cereal bar and was he now going to explode into a zillion fiber-rich pieces?

...Wait, he didn't even _like_ cereal bars. Bah. So what the heck _was_ it? Roxas scratched his scalp in thought and looked at the clock. It was a quarter after noon - _way_ too early for thinking. Hmph.

The feeling of utter doom only increased when he pulled on a random pair of pants and threw on a sticky tank top, even though he usually never wore a shirt down to summer brunch. That should have been his first clue, but he ignored it and ran a hand through his hair in a teenaged boy's way of brushing it before heading downstairs.

"Mornin' sleepyhead!" Axel grinned from the table and waved his knife in the air, which just happened to be covered with the equivalent of half a stick of butter. However, since butter is slippery (which just gave Roxas bad thoughts of late-night pornos), it slid right off of Axel's knife and flew through the air, landing on top of the blond's head with a disgusting 'plop'.

Roxas just stared, his left eye twitching a bit. Axel made a little 'O' shape with his mouth before shrugging and loading more butter onto the square inch of toast he had left. He failed to notice the twitch in Roxas' eye. Bad move.

The blond gritted his teeth, willing himself not to run over and strangle the redhead. Instead he spun around, feeling the butter move around on his head, and yelled, _"MOM!"_

There was a long stretch of silence before Roxas heard the pretty 'clinking' sound of a bead curtain – well, it was pretty to anyone who didn't constantly hear it, so Roxas just found it annoying – and his mother suddenly appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. "Yes?"

"Did you let the stray freak in the house?"

"Hey!" Axel protested.

She didn't answer right away, but tilted her head so that her long, kinda-ratty, blonde hair spilled over a bony shoulder. "Roxas, sweetheart, he said he was your friend. And you told me to let your friends in the door and not bother them."

"He's _not_ my friend!" Roxas growled, wanting to hurl the microwave at Axel's head. Or possibly his mother's, since she didn't condone violence. Throwing an appliance at her head would be a nice wake-up call.

The microwave got mentally thrown at Axel, though, when he grinned and said, "No, Mrs. Roxas' Mom, I'm his _boyfriend_."

KILL.

His mother just raised her eyebrows before shrugging. "Love is love, Roxas," she sighed dreamily. "How else would I be able to be with your father? Peace, love, unity, respect. Remember that."

Roxas, who had been mouthing the words as his mother spoke them, just rolled his eyes. "He's not my boyfriend, I don't even _like_ him, and I want him _out!_"

His mother sighed and lazily waved a hand before turning away and leaving.

"I _could_ go..." Axel started, a devilish/perverted grin on his face. It was always hard to tell with him. "...Maybe to get some ice cream. But there will be none for _you_, Roxas."

The blond suddenly remembered the previous day and the feeling of utter DOOM hit him like a sledgehammer. "CRAP!" he yelled, banging his hands on the table so hard that the silverware clattered like something out of Jurassic Park. He glared at the redhead, his eyes as hard as stone. "Is it the end of the month yet?" Oh please, please let it be the...twenty-ninth? Yes, that was thirty, counting yesterday. It had to be July twenty-ninth, please, oh please...

"'Fraid not." Axel snickered. "I'm _all_ yours for the next month."

"I'd rather shoot myself in the foot," Roxas groaned. Crap, why didn't his parents have a gun around for protection or whatever? Probably for this reason – so their son couldn't shoot himself in the foot.

"Pfft." Axel waved a limp hand. "If you shot yourself in the foot, you wouldn't be able to stand in line for candy at the movies."

"The movies?" Roxas frowned.

"Yes, I know, how typical." Axel clutched a hand to his heart in a failed attempt to seem dramatic. "But I figured you'd rather not look at my face, as much as I'd love to look at yours. Plus, there's this great action flick playing."

Roxas actually fought off a little blush and mentally kicked himself. "No, we're seeing horror so that if I have to run screaming from the theater from sitting next to a freak like you, at least I'll have an excuse."

"Hmph," Axel mumbled, but he was still grinning as though this whole situation was terribly amusing. "It's only a few blocks from here. Care to walk?"

_"No, not really,"_ he wanted to say. Instead, Roxas shrugged, thinking of ice cream. Cold, slightly melted, _delicious_ ice cream. Crap, he really _had_ to go through with this, didn't he? Bah. He'd do it for the ice cream. Ice creeeeam...

"Whatever," he finally answered, rubbing his temple. "It's not like I _want_ to go."

"Hmm, I wonder if the ice cream parlor has any new flavors?" Axel suddenly said, putting a finger to his bottom lip in one of those 'thoughtful and innocent' looks. "Too bad you won't get to taste them..."

"ARGUH, fine!" Roxas yelled, and then stomped up the stairs like an angry teenager. Which he kind of was, technically. He threw on random clothes and his lucky wristband – although it wasn't really that lucky considering he'd worn it yesterday and now he was stuck with the most annoying human being on the planet aside from possibly his parents. Luck be damned.

He trudged down the stairs like he was walking to his own funeral. Too late he remembered that there was still butter in his hair. Oh well, it wasn't like he had to look nice for _Axel_. Plus, they were going to the movies, so his buttery scent would fit right in. Maybe someone would mistake him for a giant bag of popcorn so they'd throw him in hot oil and he'd burn and would be saved from this month of madness.

Axel was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with a sly grin on his face. He offered his arm as the blond approached, but of course the other didn't take it. Roxas was going to stay as far away from those Axel germs as he possibly could.

The redhead just shrugged, the stupid smile never leaving his face, and the two left. Roxas shoved his hands in his pockets and kicked stones on the sidewalk. Axel stared at him until he ran into a trash can, and kept his eyes on the road after that.

"So..." he said after two blocks of silence. "Your ma's cool. She's nothing like you."

Roxas wished Axel would get hit by a train. Or a meteor. Or even for a stray baseball to knock him unconscious. "Yeah, she's kind of...a New Age-hippie, I guess. She's very gung-ho."

"I noticed." Axel smirked. "What about your dad?"

The blond gritted his teeth. Where the hell was that train? "I'd really rather _not_ talk about him. In fact, I'd really rather not speak to you at all. Just shut up."

"I hope you just mean for the next few minutes," Axel said, attempting to sound innocent. "And not for the whole month. 'Cause, you know, that would be one boring month."

"No, it'd be one quiet, idiot-free month," Roxas mumbled.

"Aw, c'mon, Roxy!" Axel clapped a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Cheer up!"

"Call me _Roxy_ again and I'll neuter you."

Axel quickly withdrew his hand. Sure, there was little he wouldn't do to flirt with Roxas, but he _did_ like the family jewels. He crossed his hands in front of his crotch and made a little 'meep' noise, but Roxas just glared murderously.

They finally reached the theater after some more awkward silence and it suddenly occurred to Roxas that he didn't even know what the heck was playing. Hmm...

"Seen it, seen it, seen it, looks dumb, seen it, I hate that actor, seen it..."

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Do you really watch that many movies? I mean, that would mean even _I_ have more of a life than you do."

"I'm not fond of paying for all of them," Axel muttered, a smirk crossing his face. Roxas frowned. Sure, plenty of people their ages snuck into movies – he himself had done it once – but Axel made it sound like his life's work. Ah, teenage delinquency.

"They paid me instead," Axel suddenly said, causing Roxas to twitch a bit. Wait a sec - _paid_ him? He worked here?

"You work here?" he asked stupidly.

"Used to," Axel shrugged. "I quit about a week before you got me fired, which kind of sucks because if two jobs couldn't cut it, none definitely won't."

Roxas, of course, immediately grew curious about what the hell Axel was yammering on about, but kept his mouth shut. He really didn't care. He was just stuck with this freak until the twenty-ninth and that was _it_.

"Oh look, they're playing that new movie based off of that mainstream anime that everyone knows about even if they've never seen a single episode!" Axel suddenly exclaimed. He grabbed the blond's arm and raced towards the ticket counter, slamming down a twenty. "Two for that badly voice-acted anime movie, please!"

The dude behind the counter just yawned and took the money, tearing off the tickets that the computer had spewed up and sliding them to the boys. Roxas' mouth had fallen open enough to catch a whole house of flies.

"I don't want to see that!" he hissed, getting his arm back. "I don't even _like_ that anime!"

"Well, _you_ obviously weren't going to decide on a movie," Axel retaliated, sticking his tongue out. "Besides, we don't _have_ to watch the movie..."

Roxas' jaw hit the floor. Not literally, of course, since that would mean his jaw was...well, not attached to his face any more, but his mouth was hanging open in a very undignified manner. "Screw you!"

"When, where, and how hard?"

"GAHHHH!" Roxas screamed and ran for the theater, hoping to possibly drown himself in the nacho cheese. That would be a hot, scalding, delicious way to death.

Before he could contemplate his cheesy suicide, Axel had caught up and ruffled his hair, not even caring that it was still covered in disgusting, melted butter gook. "So do you want some popcorn, butterhead? Maybe some candy? I know you like the sweet stuff." He grinned slowly and perversely. But mostly perversely.

"I hate you so much," Roxas muttered under his breath. The girl behind the snack counter blinked at him with a bored expression and he shook his head with a sigh. "I'll have a large popcorn, nachos with extra cheese, two boxes of those sour gummies, an extra-large cherry slushie, and a soft pretzel." If Axel was paying for him, he might as well go all out.

The redhead was grinning. "Aw, you ordered for both of us! You're already getting the hang of this dating thing!"

Pffft, how stupid _was_ Axel? "Uh, dude, none of that's for you. I didn't get to eat breakfast thanks to your appearance this morning."

"Hey, all I had was some toast!"

"With about two pounds of butter on both sides! And who knows what else you ate before I found you!? You're...you're _manorexic_ is what you are, so you're just in this for my food!"

"Oh yes, I've just asked you to date me this month so I could eat your _food_. You know, there are a lot better things I could eat than food – "

"I DON'T CARE!"

The girl behind the snack counter blinked in confusion. Roxas suddenly flushed, wondering how his scream fest with Axel must have sounded to all of these outsiders. Aw, crap. They were barely into date two and already Roxas felt like jumping off of a cliff.

Axel paid for all of Roxas' food – well, Roxas paid for some of it, considering it would have felt more like a date if the redhead paid for everything – and they lugged it all to their designated theater. Roxas immediately stuffed his mouth with a handful of popcorn when they sat down so Axel wouldn't be tempted to talk to him.

The plan failed horribly. "So, Roxas, what other kind of movies do you like? Me, I'm mostly into action and sci-fi. Horror is okay, but not at night because I'm a pansy who should just get hit by a train."

Wait a second, that wasn't it. The blond shook his head before shoving some nachos in his mouth. Axel wasn't talking about his imaginary death, unfortunately. He was babbling on and on about movies and actors and his old job here and gum under the seats and blah, blah, blah. Roxas was beginning to regret going to the ice cream parlor yesterday.

"Roxas. Hey, Roxas. Roxas. _Roxas_." Poke, poke, poke.

The blond gritted his teeth around the straw of his slushie. He wouldn't answer, he wouldn't answer, _he wouldn't answer..._

"Rrrrrroxassss..."

"DAMNIT AXEL, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT!?"

"...Can I have a nacho?"

Roxas threw the plastic container of chips and overly-spicy cheese at Axel's face. He screamed in agony and exploded in a fiery death. The end.

...Oh, wait, that was another daydream. Damn.

"Excuse me."

Roxas looked up to see a random person standing in front of them, his bulky arms crossed angrily. He looked really pissed – oh crap, was that a name tag?

"I got a complaint that you two hooligans were causing trouble. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

Roxas blinked. "He's the one messing around. Not me." He pointed to the redhead.

"Wha-!?" Axel sputtered.

"Come with me, young man." Mr. Security Dude effortlessly hauled Axel out of his seat by his upper arm and dragged him out of the theater while the redhead continued to complain that he was innocent. Psssh, he should've thought against getting tattoos on his freaking _face_ if he wanted to play 'innocent'.

About fifteen minutes later, all of the food had been eaten, save for the slushie, and the movie was just barely starting. Roxas really didn't want to see this hunk of junk, so he excused himself from the theater, hoping Axel had decided to go home and die.

Fat chance. The redhead was waiting for him right outside the theater. "Oh, I knew you'd come for me, Roxy! We're not going to stand for the intolerance of these employees, are we!? We can go on strike! Or we can –"

Axel was immediately cut off when half of a cherry slushie was dumped on his head.

"You made me leave the house, you bought me stuff, and I looked at your face without tearing my eyeballs out. I think that qualifies as today's date. Now leave...me..._alone_."

Roxas spun on his heel and turned for home while Axel just stared him openmouthed. Finally, he sighed and smirked in amusement.

"At least the cherry slushie goes with my hair..."

_Axel's Current Likeability (on a scale of one to ten): Negative 15._

---

That 'Likeability Scale' will fluctuate depending on how pissed off Roxas gets. xD It would've been a negative two-hundred or something on the first date. xP

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far! -SHOWERS COOKIES ON YOU ALL- You guys rock. I would go and glomp you all, except that would involve a lot of traveling and I'm broke. Well, you probably should've figured that since I'll be twenty in three weeks and I'm spending my life writing fanfiction. Nyeah.

**Reviews **are utter and total love and will probably be squealed it. Yay. :D


	3. Date Three: Visit at Work

Heyyy guys. –falls over- xD

Gahh, where does time keep going!? I barely have a life and it just slips right on by until I realize, "OH YEAH, FIC!TIME IS NOW." Durdurdur. xD

Well, you can blame part of the lateness of this on FF9. I got it for my birthday (which was on September 30; gimmie cake! xD) and I've been playing it nonstop ever since. Well, almost nonstop since at one point, my file corrupted and I had to start alllll over again. YAY BACKUPS.

Speaking of my birthday, XO'MagickMoon'OX wrote me a totally fabulous and adorable birthday fic that is so much love. :D It's under my favorites list if you'd like to read it, which you should. BUT AFTER YOU READ THIS, OKAY. :D

Okay, enough of my boring life. FIC!TIME IS NOW!

**Date Three: Visit at Work**

_**Monday, July 2**_

As a sixteen-year old, Roxas liked buying stuff. Call him materialistic, but he was insanely happy when he managed to get his hands on a new video game or whatever. He especially liked violent RPG's that led him to screaming obscenities at the television while his mother stood in the doorway and watched with a disappointed look on her face. It was always amusing since she usually threatened to take the game away, but never did since she wanted her son to grow up 'as his own man'. Yeah, whatever. His mom was breathing in too much incense.

But anyway, since Roxas liked buying stuff and his father's and mother's jobs combined just barely covered all of the necessities (and by 'necessities', he meant 'stuff for themselves since their only son was practically an adult and didn't need mommy and daddy to coddle him'), he had been pretty much forced to get a job the minute he turned sixteen, the legal job-hiring age.

It actually hadn't been all that difficult to turn him into a working man. Twilight Town had tons of job listings posted all around town – why they couldn't put them in the newspaper like a _normal_ town was beyond him, but whatever – so he simply took the first thing that would hire him.

"Welcome to Flowers R Us. You name it, we can grow it."

...Alright, so he worked in a flower shop. Stop laughing.

It wasn't so bad, really, despite the fact that the customers knew more about the plants than he did. Roxas didn't really _care_ when tulips or roses or _whatever_ was in season. He didn't give a crap about fertilizer or mulch or seeds. He was just in this for the pay days. Glorious, glorious pay days.

Besides, his boss loved flowers enough for both of them, and perhaps even an extra person. Roxas sincerely hoped that he would never get as attached to anything that wasn't living. Err, inanimate. Plants were living, right? Roxas always forgot. He'd flunked second-grade science.

"Good morning," his boss greeted, sauntering of his office. Well, it seemed he had taken extra care to prove that wasn't gay today in a blue button-down shirt and some black pants. If it wasn't for the beaded flower bracelet he was wearing, Roxas might have believed him.

"Morning, Marluxia," he sighed. "What are you enslaving me to today?"

Marluxia frowned. "I pay you. Last time I checked, slaves didn't get paid, although that can certainly be arranged."

"Right then. I'll go water the ferns." Despite his boss's very, uh, unmanly appearance, he definitely_sounded_ manly enough. Marly's deep voice was enough to make any small child wet their pants in fear. No wonder everyone thought he was just metrosexual once they heard his voice.

But Roxas knew better. Marluxia was as gay as they came. He didn't really care, though, as long as he didn't get a boyfriend and he shirked his shop duties to go make out with him in front of his only employee. Roxas could very much live without the sight of two men getting it on, thankyouverymuch.

Roxas sighed and turned on the hose, spraying the ferns full blast. Marly would probably come and chop his head off with some random pointy object if he found out, but the blond didn't care. Watering was watering was watering and however many years he ended up working here wouldn't change his mind about that. Why use a watering can when you had a great big hose? Seriously.

He sighed again, his mind involuntarily drifting towards the weekend he had still yet to recover from. Ugh, Axel really _was_ a pain in the ass. Sure, he'd gotten some free food out of the whole ordeal, but free food was nothing when you had to stare at a redheaded jerkwad for minutes at time. Roxas just hoped that whatever 'date' Axel had planned for today involved more free food, because that was the only way Axel was going to get through this month with his genitals intact.

As Roxas was contemplating how funny it would be if Axel was penis-less and would therefore actually be forced to think with the head on his neck, Marluxia burst into the fern area.

"There's someone out there asking for you," he said in his manly voice, grabbing the hose from Roxas. "Go deal with them."

The blond rolled his eyes. Why the heck did Marluxia always make _him_ deal with the customers? He hated random people. His boss was way better at talking to them and whatnot. Marly could easily manipulate someone into buying a dozen roses when they came in for a single carnation.

The fact that this person was asking for him, though, made Roxas frown in thought. Let's see – Hayner was probably helping the Struggle coordinator dude with stuff, Pence was either helping them or wandering around taking pictures, and Olette was surely working her morning shift at the local candy store. So this random person couldn't be any of them unless Hayner was using his break to make fun of Roxas for having such a girly job as he sometimes did. Prick.

The random person couldn't be his mother either, or Marluxia wouldn't have fled. Marly got along really well with Roxas' mom since they both loved flowers to no end. It was kind of kicking, actually. Roxas didn't really care about the joy of tulips.

Roxas was thinking that maybe it was his father back from his...'business trip', but when he caught sight of horribly red spikes, he kind of wished it _was_ his father. Oh, crap.

"What the hell are you doing here!?" the blond hissed.

Axel broke into a grin. "Hey!" he greeted, looking like he'd just won the lottery. A very angry, pissed off lottery. "I finally found you!"

"How the hell did you find me!?" Roxas demanded to know. "No, wait, don't answer that. I'm going to kill you with a trowel now. The cops will be none the wiser. Marluxia can talk himself out of anything."

"'Marluxia'? That's the guy's name?"

Roxas wanted to hang Axel with a garden hose. "_Yes_. I just said that, plain as day. He's my boss. Now tell me what you're doing here before I kick you out." It was an empty threat. Roxas was going to kick Axel out of the shop no matter what he said.

"Your friend Olette told me you worked here."

Roxas twitched and cursed the fact that Olette had boobs.

"Anyway!" Axel exclaimed, leaning his elbows on the counter and resting his chin in his hands. "A flower shop, eh? Never figured you for the flowery type."

"I'm not. Can you please go away and die?"

"'Fraid not." Axel was still grinning like an idiot. "What's your favorite flower, so I can surprise you with a bouquet sometime?"

Roxas rolled his eyes. He was a manly teenage boy! He didn't have a favorite _flower_. His favorites were, like...uhh, favorite beef jerky. And favorite pro Struggler. Yeah. Flowers were for girls and fruity gay men.

Axel must have noticed the murderous look on the blond's face, because he just grinned some more. "Well, hey, _I_ have a favorite flower, if you ever feel like surprising your man. It's –"

"Let me guess – pansies," Roxas deadpanned, going to the computer to print out a few invoices. Before Axel could retaliate, Roxas added, "And if you _eve_ call me 'your man' again, I will personally make sure that _all_ of your appendages are harmed in the most awful ways possible."

The redhead sighed. "Don't be such a party pooper!" he cried, grabbing a cellophane-wrapped carnation out of a nearby basket and handing it to Roxas with a flourish.

"That'll be three ninety-five," Roxas said with a frown.

"No! It's for you!"

"...What?"

"I'm trying to make a friendly, romantic gesture." Axel grinned. "They don't like to admit it, but all guys love receiving flowers. It's a fact!"

"Well _I_ don't," Roxas muttered. "I_work_ around flowers and put up with crap all the time for doing so. That's the first thing wrong with your 'gesture'." The blond ticked off a finger. "The second thing is that even if I accepted the stupid flower, you'd still have to pay for it even if you thought otherwise. And third, if you really wanted to impress someone with a stupid plant, wouldn't you go for something better than a single-stemmed carnation? At least get a rose, for crying out loud."

Axel's mouth fell open and he dropped the carnation on the floor. Okay, maybe Roxas was right on all three accounts, but he didn't have to be so – so..._blunt_ about it. "Well –"

"Is this customer bothering you, Roxas?" Marluxia suddenly asked, appearing from thin air. Apparently he was done watering the ferns. About time.

"He's not a customer," Roxas replied. "He's just...a guy."

Marluxia frowned, not quite believing the blond. The kids' voice was seething with so much anger that the two men involuntarily took steps back away from the register. While doing so, Axel accidentally squashed the fallen carnation with his steel-toed boot. Of course, it was the stupid cellophane wrap that gave it away – it made it sound like a firecracker was going off in the place.

Marluxia looked at the ground in horror. "What have you done!?" he sputtered.

Roxas rolled his eyes at Axel, looking grim. "Now you've done it," he murmured.

"Done what?" he asked, but it was too late. Marly was already on the rampage.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT TAKES US TO GROW THESE CARNATIONS, ESPECIALLY THE ROSE-COLORED ONES LIKE THE ONE YOU JUST SO HEARTLESSLY STEPPED ON!? IT WAS A DELICATE LITTLE FLOWER, UNWORTHY OF THE SCUM AT THE BOTTOM OF YOUR SHOE! YOU'D BETTER PAY FOR IT AND THEN SOME OR I'LL MAKE YOUR LIFE SO MISERABLE THAT YOU WON'T EVEN WANT TO _LOOK_ AT ANOTHER FLOWER EVER AGAIN!!!!!"

Roxas tapped the counter, looking bored. Axel just looked scared out of his wits. Roxas would have felt sorry for him, but, well...given the situation, he couldn't really find much pity for Axel. Maybe there was some in his pinky toe...nope, wait - that was boredom. Oh, darn.

"It was just one flower!" Axel finally cried, looking the slightest bit pissed. "And I'll pay for it._Geez_, you need to get out of the greenhouse more often, _old man_."

Marluxia's face turned as red as Axel's hair. He wasn't an old man! "GET OUT OF MY STORE!"

"You don't want me to pay for the carnation?"

"OUT!"

"Yeesh, fine." Axel gave a stupid little wave to Roxas, who was probably supposed to think it was 'adorable'. Or something equally lame. "I'll see you tomorrow, Roxy!" he called as he ran out of the store before Marluxia could throw a bag of fertilizer at his head.

Roxas rolled his eyes as the shop grew silent. Even though Axel was finally gone, he somehow seemed angrier than before. After Marluxia calmed down – he _wasn't_ old – he noticed this and asked him what was wrong.

Roxas gritted his teeth. "Why didn't you ban him!?"

"What? I – I did!"

"No you didn't! Not specifically, anyway!" The blond threw his hands in the air, looking completely exasperated, before giving Marluxia a completely murderous look. "I'm going in the back room for a bit to despise my existence. Axel's, too. In fact, I'll hate his existence more because I completely hate his guts." He stomped away dramatically.

Marluxia raised his eyebrows. Apparently, Axel-hating was totally _in_ this season.

_Axel's Current Likeability (on a scale of 1 -10): Negative 18_

--

Uhh...don't kill me? xD;

I was actually going to have Roxas work in a sort of paper place, I guess like Kinko's, but the thought of him dealing with pansies and tulips and roses on a practically day-to-day basis was just too much. xD I AMUSE MYSELF, YAY.

So whether you loved this or hated it or just want me to quit babbling so much, a **review **would be much appreciated! They inspire me to put down the PS2 controller for a few hours and actually wait the ten billion years it takes my computer to load Microsoft Word. :D See, that's how much you guys rock!

I should update this before then (-evil laugh-), but if I don't because I am lazy, Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it:D


	4. Date Four: The Mall, Shopping

HAY GUYZ. xD

Oh man, I seriously didn't expect this one to take so long, but...well, blame NaNoWriMo and the holidays. –flails- OR MY LAZINESS. That too!

I'm hoping this one is funny, because I haven't been in a particularly hardy-har-har mood lately. But I hope I prevailed! IT'S ALL FOR YOU, YOU FABULOUS READERS OF MINE! –glomp-

**Date Four: The Mall ; Shopping**

_**Tuesday, July 3**_

Roxas was in a foul mood when he woke up the next morning. Well, considering he was a teenage boy who adored sleep like no other, he was usually in a foul mood anyway when the sun put on its perky little happy face and burst through his window. Twilight Town wasn't known for being sunny, but sometimes...damn.

Oh, yes. Anyway, Roxas was in a horrible mood. He was still bitter about Axel showing his stupid face in the flower shop, angry at Marluxia for not banning Axel, and heck, angry at the stupid lighter that had gotten him into this mess in the first place. He was really starting to wonder if his ice cream addiction was worth...twenty-six more days of this. Ugh.

He threw on a shirt and some baggy sweatpants over his boxers in case Axel had decided to show up for breakfast again. If that little freak valued being a man, however (although 'man' in this case left much to be disputed), he'd have the sense to stay away after Roxas' outburst last time.

Luckily (or maybe unluckily), Axel was not as stupid as Roxas thought, because the kitchen was empty when he entered it. Even his mother wasn't around yet. Sweeeet. He got busy making himself a manly breakfast of sausage and eggs and went through yesterday's mail while eating (his mother could never be bothered to look at it on the day it came, since it arrived during her 'zen hour' and she'd conveniently forget about it afterwards). Most of it was boring – bill, bill, junk, bill, junk, a letter from his dad (which Roxas made a face at and threw the envelope on his mother's chair), some boring catalogues, and – hmm, a flyer advertising a sale on fireworks. What the...?

Oh, wait, tomorrow was the fourth of July – the day Twilight Town gained independence or something. Roxas rolled his eyes at the thought as he crumpled the flyer and chucked it over his should. He heard it land on the stove. Hopefully his mom would see it before she cooked anything, or the paper would catch on fire and probably burn the house down. Honestly, who was the parent around here?

Aaand speak of the devil – his mother announced her presence by way of leaving her crazy hippie room place (he didn't know what the heck to call it – he never went in there if he could help it) with that stupid, clinky bead curtain. She wandered into the kitchen and noticed the envelope in her chair, opening it slowly as she sat down.

"Your father just left that fancy hotel in Atlantica," she said after scanning the paper for a moment. "He should be home in the next day or two."

"Good for him," Roxas muttered. The point of him chucking the letter on his mother's seat was so that he wouldn't have to hear about it, damnit.

Luckily, his mom didn't push it. She knew how he felt about his dad. Instead, she stood up, began to make a cup of tea, and asked, "So, where's your boyfriend?"

_Snap._ The halves of a once-whole fork clattered to the ground. Roxas was just glad he wasn't eating any sausage. He might've choked on it.

His mom didn't give a flying leap about the broken utensil. "So?"

"Axel is NOT my boyfriend," Roxas replied through gritted teeth. "He came into work yesterday and nearly got me fired." Okay, that was a lie, but it _sounded_ good. "He's a freaking _stalker_, not to mention the most annoying human on the face of the planet. Oh, and I HATE HIS GUTS. A cement truck – no, two cement trucks – could fall on him and catch him in a fiery explosion and I absolutely wouldn't give a crap unless the fire spread to my room."

Unsurprisingly, his mother didn't say a word and just stirred some milk into her tea before sipping it thoughtfully. Once her son had gone down the rage-o-meter a bit, she calmly said, "Did you know that the emotions for love and hate are triggered by the same chemical in the brain?"

"..."

"Just don't make too much noise when you bring him up to your room, okay?" She actually patted his head before leaving with her tea.

Roxas was glad that those pieces of the fork were on the floor, or he would've hurled them at his mother in frustration. Gahhh, where was his dad the one time he actually needed him? At least then he'd have a better target!

--

Okay, so his glorious breakfast (well, 'glorious' until his mom showed up and started making freaky comments) had been Axel-free, but now Roxas couldn't help but feel a bit paranoid as he walked to work. What if the redhead was stalking him? Was he in that trash can? How about that bush?

Roxas rubbed his temples as he wandered inside the flower shop. He _so_ did not need this. Axel was blissfully not around and he _still_ managed to be annoying!

Woo, okay. Deep breaths. Huff, puff. Roxas pinned on his dorky name tag (which, honestly, was hardly necessary given it was just him and Marluxia, but he thought that Marly figured they were a fashion statement or something equally gay like that) and his eyes darted around the room. He'd been half-expecting that the redhead would be there with some smelly old roses, but the room was Axel-free. Thank goodness.

Marluxia then waltzed into the room, trying too hard not to look totally gay, as usual. Today it was the rings and the scoop-neck shirt – seriously, no self-proclaimed straight dude wore a top with such a delicately curved neckline along with several silver rings covered in intricate designs. Obviously Roxas could understand if a guy wore a cool pinky ring or a wedding ring or whatever, but - _hello_. Whatever was around Marly's fingers was clearly designed by someone with very little testosterone. To Roxas, 'jewelry' meant a ratty old wristband and possibly a necklace, but only if it was blingin'. Or those aforementioned pinky rings. Yeah.

Anyway, speaking of gay men – or perhaps not speaking of them, since Axel didn't stop by the shop to invade Roxas' personal space all day – Roxas managed to get a lot done despite his paranoia. He was able to send out invoices, water a bunch of stuff, order some fertilizer, and even take a lunch break without anyone trying to woo or charm or make fun of him. It was awesome.

He couldn't help but grow suspicious on his trek home, however. Had Axel actually taken pity on him and let him off the hook for the day? Or even better – maybe he'd overslept (it was only early afternoon – Marly had given him the rest of the day off since business was slow and they'd managed to get so much done without anyone pestering them). Or perhaps he'd finally gotten hit by a train. Or ingested Pop Rocks and soda. Or burned his face off. Or...

Possibilities were still swarming in his mind as he passed the mall. Well, 'mall' was probably a glorified term for the place since malls were supposed to be fun and this place was lamer than melted ice cream, but a mall it was called, so a mall it would be.

Roxas didn't frequent the place much, given that he was a dude and by default hated shopping, but he couldn't help but noticed that a giant 'FIREWORKS SALE' banner hung across the entrance. Well, that would certainly explain the fellow teenage boys that were crowding around.

Wait, fellow teenage boys? That meant…

"HEY, ROXAS!!"

Oh crap! He thought he'd escaped! It had already been three unbearable days! Just one break! JUST ONE!

Roxas supposed that he should've been grateful, though. If the giant banner hadn't distracted every male brain who passed it, he might've had to sit through a candlelight dinner or something equally heinous. Shudder.

"Hey, Axel," the blond finally answered, crossing his arms in the universal language for, "PLEASE GO AWAY AND GET RUN OVER BY A LAWN MOWER."

Of course, Axel didn't get flattened by a giant lawn care product, but instead ran up to Roxas with a huge grin on his face. "Hey! I was hoping you'd show up!"

How could Axel have known that Roxas would walk up to the mall today instead of idly passing it by? It escaped all logic. Oh wait, this was _Axel_ he was talking about – the word 'logic' didn't exist, like the perfect girlfriend. Or boyfriend, as the case may be. Wait, Axel wasn't his _boyfriend_. Why was he even giving this more than an ounce of though? Stupid Axel, making him use his precious brainpower on stupid stuff, when he could've been thinking about...uh...philosophy and...stuff.

Instead of running away like a puppy that got caught peeing on the floor, Roxas actually let his wrist be grabbed by Axel. He also let himself be dragged through the mob of people buying fireworks and into the 'mall', where there were even more 'BUY SOME FIREWORKS RIGHT NOW, SUCKER' banners hanging around. After a few moments though, he came to his senses and yanked his arm from Axel so violently that he stumbled into two old ladies on their walkers, sending them flying to the ground, dentures and all.

He quickly helped them up and apologized like crazy, which probably didn't go over very well seeing as how he was sending a mega-super-death-glare-of-doom at Axel, which was fifty billion times more threatening than a normal death glare. DUN DUN DUNNN.

Axel, of course, was not normal and therefore immune to Roxas' mega-super-death-glare-of-doom. He just grinned like an idiot and waited for Roxas to finish helping the old ladies, grabbing his arm in a death grip once the blond had apologized yet again.

This time, Roxas didn't try to take his arm back for fear of smacking into another old person, or worse, a hot girl that would automatically assume he was gay because he was being dragged around by a fruity-looking freak. He just hissed, "Let go of my arm, you freak!"

Oh, yes. Very effective..._not._

Axel continued dragging him around. "We have to buy fireworks for tomorrow!" he said...well, gaily. Duh. "I don't have much cash saved up since I got fired so suddenly, but I'm sure I can get a discount."

Roxas was torn – for one, he was feeling guilty because of the whole 'you-got-me-fired-Blondie-neener-neener' thing that Axel had just thrown in his face; but for another, he was suddenly extremely suspicious of Axel buying fireworks.

Which brought up another point: "I thought you had to be eighteen to buy them," Roxas said.

"Oh, I know a guy." Axel grinned secretively. "Plus, I have a fake I.D. So really, it's all good."

No, no, it was _not_ all good. Roxas had never gotten in trouble with the law – well, save for that one time a cop saw him and Hayner egging a teacher's house, but nobody had ever found out it was them – and now here he was hanging out with a juvenile delinquent!

Roxas suddenly realized there was another burning question on his mind. "How old_are_ you anyway?"

"Seventeen."

"...So you need a fake I.D. just to age you _one year!?_"

"Yep." Axel grinned again and tapped a free finger to his temple. "And I'll be legal in a few months anyway, so no harm done."

Roxas' mouth fell open. He could not _believe_ what he was hearing – but it didn't really matter, because they'd suddenly stopped short in front of a particularly violent-looking fireworks stand. He didn't know how this one looked more evil than the others, but it did.

Maybe it was the sudden appearance of the vendor that did it. It was a woman – why this surprised Roxas, he didn't know – with short blonde hair that would've looked sophisticated if not for the two random ponytails sticking out of the top of her head. It kind of looked like bug feelers, to be honest.

As Roxas was pondering girls and their crazy hairstyles, the blonde woman leaned over and raised an eyebrow at Axel, somehow looking sweet and intimidating while she did so. Whoa, scary.

"Axel, you're not legal yet, are you?" she asked, a hint of...something evil in her voice. Roxas couldn't put a finger on it, because Axel's hand had suddenly tightened around his wrist and he was loosing all feeling in his arm.

"Nah, not yet," Axel replied, still grinning like an idiot. "Not that that matters to you, right, Larx?"

"Just don't let them catch you." 'Larx' rolled her eyes and then darted them over to Roxas, who was attempting to free his arm from Axel's grip. It wasn't doing him much good, though, because his arm felt like a limp noodle. He stopped fidgeting though, when the woman suddenly asked, "Is this the new boyfriend?"

"Yup!" Axel grinned.

"No way!" Roxas hissed.

'Larx' – although by now she'd straightened up and Roxas could see that her nametag read 'Larxene' – just raised an eyebrow and looked at Axel again, shaking her head. "C'mon Axel, he's just a kid. Is he even gay?"

Roxas couldn't believe his ears. He finally managed to tear his arm from Axel with a growl and hissed, "I'm _not_ a _kid_, I'm only a year younger than this freak!" He gestured towards the redhead with a look of disgust. "And _no_, I'm not _gay_!! I like beef jerky and my favorite pro Struggler is Setzer!!!"

Too late, Roxas realized that he'd gone from zero to ten on the rage-o-meter and was shouting those last sentences. It seemed as though the entire mall had gone silent to hear Roxas admit that he wasn't gay. Normally this would be a fabulous thing, but Roxas had had it up to_here_ (insert hand held above his head) with Axel and just stormed away from him, stomping like a preteen whose curfew had been shortened.

Everyone quickly went back to their business and the mall gradually filled with noise again, but the one noise Roxas couldn't escape was a certain redhead screaming, "ROXAS, WAIT! WAAAAIT! COME BAAAACK!"

Roxas was tempted to flip him off, but there were children around and, well, it's all about the children. Instead he just stomped away faster, hoping to get away from the freak with the crazy hair.

Fate is a cruel, cruel thing, however. Roxas failed to take into account that things would be moved around today in order to make room for the fireworks stands, so instead of assuming the normal path to outside would be cleared, he instead crashed right into the sausage and cheese cart.

The irony of having sausages collapse on top of him was not lost. Roxas gripped one in his hand – which he immediately regretted because it was hot off the oven, so he chucked it at someone's head, probably those old ladies' – and gritted his teeth, his anger as hot as those sausages.

Once again, people stopped to stare at him, whispering behind their hands. Well, if one good thing was to come from this crazy mall trip, maybe he'd be banned for life and would never again be forced to come here.

Axel, however, wasn't thinking along those lines. Then again, when did that freak ever think? "Roxas!" he exclaimed, pushing through all the people. He lifted the blond up by his shoulders, plucking a piece of cheese from his hair. "Are you okay?"

Roxas was silent for a moment. Was this guy serious? Seriously. WHAT THE HELL.

There was more silence before Roxas muttered, "Get me out of this mall _now_," in a voice that would have made Satan himself piss his pants. It actually chilled Axel's bones for a minute.

"But...I haven't bought any fireworks," he said lamely.

Roxas glared some more (but it wasn't as deadly as the mega-super-death-glare-of-doom, mind you) and shook Axel's hands off of him, spinning around and stomping away as though his toppling over the sausage and cheese cart had never happened.

"Hey, wait!" Axel cried, scrambling to his feet, slipping on many a sausage on the way. He quickly caught up to Roxas, who was still seething. Ouch. "Look – "

"No, _you_ look," Roxas interrupted with another growl. "The only reason I'm here is because you're depriving me of ice cream. The _only_ reason. You should know by now that I completely despise you and I would like nothing more than to disembody you and stuff those disgusting sausages in place of your guts. I swear..." Roxas trailed off, though, realizing he could do nothing more than make a few more empty threats. His random meeting with that Larxene chick kind of proved that Axel wasn't kidding when he said he knew people. People that could prevent him from ever eating ice cream again.

Why? Whyyyyy did it have to be so delicious!?

Axel heaved a sigh, unaware of Roxas's inner turmoil. Jerk. Not knowing he was being hated even more, he went on to say, "Look, I'm sorry you ran into those ladies and got sausage and cheese all over yourself, but this is all really your own fault."

Roxas' mouth fell open. "Excuse me!?"

"We agreed on one date a day for a month –"

"Twenty-six days."

" – And we haven't gone on one since the day before yesterday. I'll let it slide this time, but if it happens again..." Axel raised an eyebrow, which Roxas guessed was supposed to intimidate him, but all it did was make him scowl some more. "...You have to go on all the dates _and_ you never get ice cream again."

The blond's mouth fell open for the second time in the span of thirty seconds. He'd be going for a world record at this rate. "What!? That wasn't part of the deal!"

"Neither was you skipping out on dates, as much as I know you want to." Axel looked pained.

Roxas frowned. He honestly couldn't tell if that pained face was just an act or what. Why was Axel so insistent on these stupid dates? No amount of them would change the fact that Roxas hated him. It was a fact, like gravity and new shoes coming with those little 'DO NOT EAT' packets.

Finally, he heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, slowly getting to his feet in case some other food cart was rolling in near him or something. "Fine. Whatever. No more skipping out on...dates." He said the last word in a near-whisper, as though pretending the word didn't exist would make it go away.

Axel's face lit up with a grin. "Good to know!" He latched onto Roxas's arm again. "C'mon. Let's go malling. I still need to buy fireworks for tomorrow and...I'll buy you a slushie."

'Food?' Roxas's brain questioned. Food was good. Axel buying him food was _very_ good. Wait, why was it _very_ good? It was just GOOD, damnit. Good. Food. Yes. Slushie.

"Okay," Roxas finally replied. That had been odd.

--

It turned out that Axel knew the mall like the back of his hand. Well, if the back of his hand had random firework stands all over the place and tons of screaming kids.

After returning to Larxene and buying about a hundred dollars worth of fireworks for twenty bucks (Roxas didn't ask – he didn't want to _know_ - why Larxene gave him such a huge discount), Axel fulfilled his promise and bought Roxas a huge grape slushie. Roxas was glad it was a large – he didn't have to talk to Axel while he sipped it.

The redhead tried babbling anyway. "So what are you doing for tomorrow?"

Roxas swallowed a huge gulp of grape and closed his eyes for a moment, cursing brain freeze and its existence while also thinking of a way to try and get Axel arrested for public indecency. Not that he was being indecent, unless you counted forcing a guy to date him, but still. He failed to think of anything and was finally forced to answer, "No. I don't celebrate it."

"How come?"

The blond raised an eyebrow. It was just an innocent question, but really, he had every right to be completely suspicious of Axel, damnit. "Because I wasn't raised here. I'd feel weird celebrating some place's independence when I don't even really consider it home."

"Where were you raised?"

Geez, what was this, twenty questions? Roxas rolled his eyes, too exhausted to think of a sarcastic reply. "Everywhere. My dad's job has him traveling a lot and it was only recently that he trusted me and my mom by ourselves."

"He couldn't leave your mother alone with you or something?" Axel seemed genuinely curious.

Roxas rolled his eyes again. "You've met my mother. My dad wanted to make sure that _I_ was able to take care of _her_. I mean, she's alright for a mom, but she's such a spaz. She'd probably set our own house on fire if I left her alone long enough." That suddenly made Roxas think of the crumpled flyer he'd thrown on the stove and he once again hoped that his mother had seen it and he wouldn't come home to a pile of smoldering ash.

"I don't know about that." Axel bought two giant pretzels at the food court and handed one to Roxas, who immediately jammed half of it in his mouth so he wouldn't be forced to talk anymore. Axel smirked and held up a little container of something.

Roxas narrowed his eyes. He _wouldn't..._

"Forgot your cheese dip," Axel laughed, dumping the contents of the container over the blond's head.

There was a pause in which Roxas finally swallowed the lump of pretzel he'd been hoarding in his mouth before kicking Axel in the ankle, causing the redhead to topple over and faceplant right smack into a puddle of mop water. Who knew how many people had stepped in that? Sucker!

Roxas was about to run far, faaar away from this crazy 'date' madness when Axel inexplicably grabbed the blond's ankle and tugged, now causing _him_ to fall butt-first into that disgusting puddle of mop water. Oh crap. And these were one of his few pairs of work pants!

"Asshole," Roxas hissed.

"Nah," Axel replied with a grin full of mop water. How the heck was he still smiling!? "Listen, I'm picking you up tomorrow after work for fireworks. A lot of my friends are gonna be there. You can meet them."

"Let me go, you freak." Roxas struggled to free his leg, but Axel had on his crazy death grip again. Did this guy have steel fingers or something? "I don't want to meet your stupid friends!"

"So you want to have an evening alone with me under the fireworks?"

Roxas flushed. Axel had said that last line in a particularly loud voice, so about half of the food court had heard that – so basically they all thought he was gay. _Fabulous._

"I'll meet your stupid friends," Roxas muttered under his breath, thanking whatever deity was up when Axel finally released his ankle. They both stood up slowly, ignoring the odd looks the other people were giving them. Roxas envied those people – they were probably leading nice, normal lives where a gay stalker dude wasn't...stalking them. And hoping they'd magically find out they were gay or bi or what-the-hell-ever.

"Good," Axel replied with a grin, hooking his arm in Roxas's again. "It'll be one _fabulous_ night."

Roxas just closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, thinking that he'd probably have to have a dentist look into that whole teeth-erosion-from-gritting thing. "Yeah. _Fabulous._"

_Axel's Current Likeability (on a scale of one to ten): Negative 17._

_--_

What? xD –falls over-

Bonus points if you catch the South Park reference in there. It's not a big one, but hey. What can I say, that show owns my weeknights. –ded-

I'm not sure when the next update will be since I have some other fics I need to work on and I'm starting to make my costumes for Megacon this year (is anyone else going:D), so my brain may be occupied for awhile! But just for a little while. Tehehe.

ANYWAY, if you loved it, hated it, want to rip my keyboard away from my fingers, a **review**is always appreciated, dear readers!


	5. Date Five: Fireworks, 4th of July

HAY GUIZ

I'm sooo sorry this took forever. –flails- Megacon and job hunting and yadda yadda. You know how it is. RIGHT!? ...I'm sure you do. Ahem. –cough-

Have I mentioned that **I FREAKING LOVE YOU GUYS**!? Holy cheese, all of these reviews are making my brain explode in the best possible way. And I'm sure there is a best possible way for brain explosion somewhere. But man. I smile sooo much every time I see a new review and it makes me...well, it makes me want to each ice cream. But I won't for Roxas's sake. ;D

PLZ TO BE READING NEW CHAPTER, MY LOVELY READERS!

* * *

**Date Five: Fireworks; 4th of July**

**_Wednesday, July 4_**

Doom.

Despair.

Desolation.

Roxas frowned to himself. Why did words that basically meant 'agony of the brain' start with a 'D'? Maybe that was his grade in life since he got himself into this mess. He should've failed.

Of course, all of this doom in Roxas's brain was Axel's fault. It was always Axel's fault. Every single bad thing that had happened to him was because of the redhead. Well, at least lately. He could probably blame his dad for the bad stuff that had happened to him pre-Axel. After all, they both took great pride in making his life miserable while thinking they weren't they weren't doing anything _bad_.

Hmph.

Flowers 'R' Us was closed for the day – Twilight Town's Independence Day was one of _those_ awesome holidays – so Roxas just laid there on his bed and stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should even get up at all. If he didn't get up, he didn't have to see Axel. If he didn't see Axel, he could prevent his brain from handling any more doom. If he prevented his brain from handling any more doom, maybe he could convince himself he could lead a nice, normal life away from all the lamery his was now.

Yeah...right.

Roxas was glad it was summer vacation. A quick glance at his clock (honestly, he'd have to get a new one of these days – that teddy bear-shaped thing just wasn't cutting it) told him it was quarter after noon, which meant it was after his preferred non-working wake up time. He yawned and stretched, scratching his chest. He wondered if his mother was awake yet. Who knew?

After a slow trek downstairs – hey, it wasn't like he needed to rush around – Roxas didn't see his mother, only an empty teacup at her place on the table along with a giant note in her big, loopy handwriting that was pretty much impossible to read. He picked up the note and began to read, making a mental note to get his mom a printer for Christmas, even though she'd probably end up breaking it anyway:

_Roxas,_

_I went downtown to see some friends for the holiday. I will be back tonight. Also, your boyfriend called around ten this morning, asking you to call him back at 555-2935. If you bring him over here, please don't leave any stains on the couch. You know your father had those blacklights installed a few years ago._

_Love, Mom._

Roxas's eye twitched. A muscle in his neck twitched. His hands shook (twitched) violently until his mother's note was ripped into two itty-bitty pieces. The note mourned for its other half.

What the _hell_ was that all about!? Why was his mother so convinced that Axel was something other than a BRAIN-SUCKING PARASITE THAT SHOULD GO AWAY AND DIE!? There would none of this AXEL IN HIS HOUSE business! Especially not with..._stains on the couch._ Stains on the couch!? What did that even MEAN!? Just...ARRRGUH!

Roxas gritted his teeth and chucked the note to the floor, having no intention of calling Axel. The last thing he wanted was to give that little _freak_ the idea that talking to each other on the phone was perfectly acceptable. Roxas didn't need his cell going off a million times a day.

There was suddenly a knock at the door and the blond jumped about a foot in the air, obviously paranoid. That _had_ to be Axel. That little fruitcake seemed to thrive on stalking Roxas.

"Hey! Roxas! Are you awake?"

Roxas lost about ten pounds letting out an extremely relieved breath. He felt almost giddy with delight and would've done a little dance to accompany his relief, but then he realized that guys doing little jigs in the kitchen was probably on the gay side and settled for just answering the door instead.

"Hayner," Roxas greeted with a nod, letting him inside.

"Hey!" Hayner grinned. "I'm surprised you're actually up. You have today off, right?"

"Yeah. I just woke up a few minutes ago." They wandered into the kitchen, the staple hangout room for two teenage boys. Roxas started rummaging around in the fridge, trying to find a suitable breakfast...lunch...brunch. "Want anything?"

"Nah. I was just wondering if you were going to meet up with us. We're all hanging out at the usual spot and going up to Sunset Hill to watch the fireworks tonight."

"Sure, I – " Roxas paused before grabbing the egg carton. Axel's..._threat_ yesterday was slowly slipping back into his mind after happily skipping out. If he bailed on the...date with the redhead, it was no more ice cream EVER, _and_ he'd still have to go on the rest of the dates.

But Axel would totally understand if Roxas skipped the...er, _date_ for today, right? It was a holiday, for crying out loud. Holidays were meant to be shared with friends and family, not psycho stalker would-be boyfriends.

...Damnit, Axel wasn't his boyfriend! Why did his brain keep betraying him!? He was still single! He liked boobs! HE WAS PENIS-FREE!

...Except for his own, of course.

Roxas knew he should've talked to Axel before confirming anything with Hayner. He _knew_ this. But he didn't really give a crap. Axel could screw himself. "Yeah, I'll be there," he finally said, taking the egg carton out of the fridge. "We haven't all hung out in awhile."

"Too true, man," Hayner replied. He suddenly frowned. "Oh wait, what about your...uh, thing with that one guy?"

_Crunch._ The carton broke into a million pieces and egg goop suddenly covered Roxas's hand. Hayner couldn't help but wince.

"What _thing_?" Roxas hissed, more eggs meeting their deaths in the deadly fist of fury and doom.

"Uh, Olette told us about it," Hayner said, staring at the egg carton. Poor eggs. "She said that you owed that one guy at the ice cream place and you had to, er...go out with him every day." Hayner seemed extremely uncomfortable with talking about Axel/Roxas.

Roxas couldn't blame him. _Roxas_ was uncomfortable talking about Axel/Roxas. "Yeah, I do," he answered. "But it's a holiday. He's spending it with _his_ friends, so I don't see why I can't spend it with mine." Roxas ignored the little voice in his brain calling him an idiot. "I'll call him, I guess, before he gets it in his mind to stalk me today."

"Does he have you on a freaking _leash_ or something?" Hayner asked as Roxas flipped open his extremely cool cell phone.

"No." (Un)Luckily, Axel's number had survived the blond's rage at his mother. He punched in the numbers and held the phone to his ear with a huge sigh. "I would _like_ to have ice cream again, dude."

Hayner gave his friend a funny look. "What does that have to do with –"

"Shut up." The phone was ringing. Once, twice, if Roxas got sent to voicemail, he was going to choke someone.

"Hello?"

Damn. He would've liked to choke Axel. "Axel?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

Roxas raised an eyebrow. "Uh, it's Roxas. Didn't you call me this morning?"

"ROXAS!" Axel's voice was immediately filled with super-gay glee, if such a thing existed. "Hey! I didn't know this was your cell phone number! I called your _house_ phone this morning!"

"You called my...?" Roxas blinked, suddenly remember that, duh, he hadn't had any missed calls on his cell. Damn his mother's misleading note! DAMN IT ALL TO HELL! "Aw, shit," he muttered.

"Thanks for your cell number," Axel replied, still sounding as happy as a clam. If clams were actually happy, getting captured and eaten. Which had sort of happened to Roxas, come to think of it – except for the eaten part. Ew.

"You'd better not be calling it ten times a day," the blond grumbled.

"Of course not," Axel said. "I'll call it twenty times a day!"

"Whatever." This conversation was already twice as long as he wanted it to be. "I need to talk to you about today."

"What about it?"

"I'd rather hang out with my friends today instead of yours," Roxas said, blunt and to the point. He was quickly figuring out that that was the best way to deal with the redhead. Simple mind games just went right over his head. Either that or he just didn't pay attention.

"Uh, well, Roxy –"

"Call me that again and I'll kick you in the nuts."

"_Roxas_, apparently you're forgetting our little deal yesterday."

"Yeah, well, it's a holiday! I don't want to hang out with your stupid friends!"

"Even though you said so yourself that you didn't give a crap about the holiday since you're not originally from here?"

Roxas was stunned. _Stunned._ Whether it was because Axel had retained such a useless piece of information in his brain or had the guts to actually use it, Roxas, didn't know, but _man_. Talk about a low blow.

"...Fine," he finally mumbled. "But I'm not spending the whole freaking day with you."

"Okay," Axel agreed, much to the blond's surprise. Maybe holidays made him more mellow or something. Like weed. Was Axel high? Roxas hoped not. Then he'd get involved because of peer pressure and all that. If he was forcibly dating a dude when he was totally straight, obviously he had a hard time saying no.

Axel had started talking again. Roxas forced himself to listen. "...So I'll meet you in front of the train station at nightfall. I'll bring you a milkshake."

The whole milkshake thing was quite possibly the most random thing Roxas had ever heard. And given his mother's note that morning – heck, given _both_ of his parents – that was saying something. "I like milkshakes," he finally replied.

"Good. So I'll see you then, _Roxy!_

"DON'T –"

_Click,_ Axel's phone replied.

Okay, milkshake or not, that stupid redhead was getting smacked. HIS NAME WAS ROXAS. NOT ROXY. Axel needed to get that memorized.

"So what's the deal?" Hayner asked after a moment of silence, in which Roxas mourned his dignity.

"Uh..." Roxas closed his phone and set it on the counter. "I'm meeting the asshole for the fireworks. But I can hang out with your guys for the rest of the day."

"What do you mean you _can?"_ Hayner asked, eyebrow raised. "Seriously man, do you need his permission to have a life now?"

Roxas groaned, sitting down and burying his face in his hands. He refused to dignify that with an answer.

* * *

It was almost like pre-Axel days. _Almost._ The fact that they were eating chips and dip instead of ice cream kept Roxas in his evil, evil Axel-filled world.

"I don't understand why _we_ can't have any just because Roxas can't," Pence complained with a sigh, reaching for a chip.

Olette wagged a finger at him. "Oh, c'mon. You know about Roxas's deal with Axel. We have to support him."

"I appreciate that," Roxas said. He didn't add that if the other three had been eating ice cream in front of him, he might have gone on a wild rampage and destroyed half the town. That might've been a tad freaky.

"Yeah, well, you'd better," Hayner said, not even going for the chips and just dumping half a container of dip in his mouth.

Olette frowned at Hayner and Pence, but then sighed. "This will be weird, though. It'll be the first year that we've all met that we're not seeing the fireworks together."

Roxas shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal," he said. "I totally wouldn't mind so much, but instead I have to see them with..." He shuddered. "_Axel._" He sighed heavily. "Can someone shoot me in the foot?"

"You wish," Hayner, Pence, and Olette said at once. They all look at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter. Roxas tried to join in, but he could only chuckle half-heartedly. This whole impending-doom feeling about this...date really freaking _sucked._

Pence quickly changed the subject, and after that, the rest of the afternoon passed without much incident. Roxas tried to ignore the feeling nostalgia growing in his gut. It felt almost as though – well, almost as though he wouldn't be able to do this for awhile. He shook his head at the thought. That was ridiculous. He saw at least one of his friends at least once, if not several times a day. Usually.

But it _had_ been awhile since they'd all hung out like this, he mused. The last time they'd all gotten together was a few days before the whole Axel thing had happened. How utterly lame. Roxas resolved to make more time for his friends when he wasn't being ordered around by his gay boss or being stalked by his gay supposed boyfriend.

When the sun had begun to set and the others were gathering their things to go up onto Sunset Hill, Roxas just sat there like a sack of potatoes. The thought of getting up to meet Axel at the train station was just totally beyond him. Well, his friends needed to go to the station too, but still. It would be weird staying behind while they left without him.

"Oh, c'mon, Roxas," Olette sighed, hefting the blond up by an arm. "It won't be so bad. At least you'll be seeing the fireworks at all, right?"

"...Sure." Roxas sounded as though he wanted to drop dead on the spot. Hey, another 'D' word.

Unfortunately for himself, no one dropped dead on the walk up to the train station – although they might as well have, given the grave silence. The other three weren't mentioning Axel to Roxas, but Roxas wished they would mention Axel so he could feel just even a smidge more comfortable about this Axel/Roxas…thing.

At any rate, it didn't really matter, because the redhead was right there, looking like life was as sweet as a cupcake when Roxas was there. He ran up to the blond, grinning like a loon. "Hey."

Roxas just rolled his eyes, watching as his friends awkwardly stood there and left, saying something about hanging out later. Roxas wanted to tell them not to count on it. Instead, he glanced at Axel and rolled his eyes again, heaving an enormous sigh. "Let's get this over with," he muttered.

"Great!" Axel said, still looking like an idiot with that...smile-thing. Of doom. He grabbed Roxas's hand and started towards the station. "It's just up here."

Roxas gritted his teeth and immediately took his hand back with so much force that he ended up thwacking himself in the forehead. "Ow. Do that again and –"

"And you'll neuter me, yeah, yeah." Axel laughed at him. "Really, you need to come up with new threats. I mean, we still have a month to go here. It's all about the new material."

"Twenty-five days."

"Eh?"

"Twenty-five days. Which is less than a month."

"Yeeeeah." Axel didn't look convinced. Weirdo, thinking that months were twenty-five days. Which they sort of were, considering all of the months _had_ twenty-five days, but that wasn't the point.

"Hey, where are we going?" Roxas suddenly realized that they'd been walking all this while. He decided not to wonder why he was automatically following Axel. It must've been a 'get me back to eating ice cream' reflex or something.

"To see the fireworks." Axel still seemed highly amused as he started up some rickety stairs on the side of the train station. "Hope you're not scared of heights, Shorty."

"I'm not short," Roxas muttered. He didn't add that he'd totally pwned his fear of heights when he was ten, on the high dive at the pool when he'd been living in Atlantica. If he mentioned that, Axel would probably just want to see pictures of him in a bathing suit or something equally stalkerish.

The fireworks were already starting by the time the two had reached a ledge on the station, where three freaky-looking people were already sitting, staring at the sky like it was the coolest thing ever.

"Hey guys!" Axel greeted, shoving Roxas in front of him. The blond held a hand against the wall to keep his balance. Crap, why were they up here again? Someone could fall and break their neck! ...Hey, maybe it would be Axel. Sweet.

"Hey," all three people greeted without looking at the other two.

The redhead just chuckled. "This is Demyx, Zexion, and Xigbar. Everyone, this is Roxas."

Three heads swiveled to eye the blond. And Roxas did mean _eye_, since one of the dudes was wearing a freaking _eyepatch_. What the hell!?

"Ah, so this is the little dude you never shut up about?" Eyepatch Guy said with a laugh.

"Yup," Axel replied, much to Roxas's mortification. Honestly. Didn't Axel have better things to talk about besides him!?

"Shhh, they're starting!" one of the other guys interrupted. Roxas blinked a few times – was that a mullet? Oh man, how did that saying go – 'work in front, party in the back'? And yeah, loser all-around. Yeesh.

"It's not like they make different sounds," the last guy muttered. This guy actually had a fairly normal overall appearance, except for the fact that his hair was blue. Roxas had to wonder where the dude bought his hair dye. Or maybe he was some freak child. It was probably better not to ask. Or think about it.

Mullet Man stuck his tongue out at Blue-Haired Dude while Freak with the Eyepatch just laughed at them both. Roxas felt bad thinking of these nicknames in his brain, but well, it wasn't like Axel had pointed everybody out while introducing him. He probably thought Roxas was psychic and crazy like he was.

Axel laughed too and sat down on the ledge, his legs dangling off the side. He patted the seat next to him, an invitation for Roxas to join him. Roxas did join him, alright – about two feet away from everyone else.

Axel laughed again and scooted over towards Roxas, still grinning like a maniac. "Oh please, did you think you were getting off that easily?"

"Maybe," Roxas muttered. Axel's friends were still ignoring them, chattering loudly about the fireworks. Roxas glanced up and watched them explode in the sky. They _were_ awfully pretty, but he'd be on his deathbed before he ever described them in such a way. Instead he said, "These are pretty cool."

Oh yes. Much more manly.

"See, this isn't so bad, right?" Axel asked, seeming genuinely curious. But it might've been ruse. Roxas couldn't trust this dude as far as he could throw him. Which probably wasn't very far, considering Axel was a head taller him and probably weighed at least ten pounds more and Roxas hadn't exactly done any weightlifting in...ever.

"I guess not," he mumbled. And really, he couldn't complain. He'd much rather have been with his friends seeing the fireworks and eating ice cream, but at least he was away from his parents. That was always a plus.

Axel grinned and leaned back up on his arms, staring at the sky. A sudden red and blue explosion made everyone whoop out loud again, and Roxas decided that he might as well too. He cheered at the fireworks above them, punching a fist in the air. Unfortunately, his psyche couldn't handle the sudden change in his otherwise stoic demeanor and his whole body stumbled (truly a feat in itself, since he was sitting down). He was going...going...

...Not gone? Roxas blinked and gasped, hanging onto the ledge for dear life. Of course Axel would suggest sitting somewhere where it was possible to fall over and crack your head open, spilling your brains everywhere. But perhaps this didn't apply, since Axel clearly didn't have any brains. He couldn't exactly say the same for the other three crazies sitting with him though...

But at any rate, the only reason Roxas' own brainmeats weren't scattered in front of the train station was because Axel had stealthily shoved an arm in front of his chest and pushed him back, therefore preventing the blond from splattering all over.

Roxas gasped again, his eyes wide with panic. This was worse than that time his dad came in for Career Day! At least then he hadn't been facing death _and_ a gay dude at once! The horror!

"T-Thanks," Roxas stuttered, trying to keep most of the terror out of his voice. He swallowed. "You can let go of me now."

"I could..." Axel pushed Roxas's chest back some more. Roxas tried to scoot away, but the redhead's other arm had mysteriously wound itself around his waist. What the heck!? Was this near-death experience some crazy...boy-touching...date...thing? ARGUH. "...Or we could just sit like this, you know."

"I'd rather not." Roxas tried to wiggle out of Axel's grasp, but unfortunately, the only way out was down. Crap! He was trapped! Trapped like a rat that was trapped in a rat trap!

Axel grinned and gripped the blond's waist even tighter, if that was humanly possible. Axel was acting like he'd planned this all along! But what if he'd gotten distracted by the pretty colors and Roxas was now a thousand bite-sized pieces on the ground? Yeah, he didn't think of _that_, now did he? Stupid Axel and his non-thinking brain. Hmph.

"Just chill and watch the fireworks," he murmured, effectively preventing Roxas from running away for his life. Demyx, Zexion, and Xigbar (Roxas still didn't know who was who) seemed completely oblivious to the whole exchange that had just happened and were indeed chilling and watching the fireworks like Axel had suggested. Not that they'd heard.

Roxas sighed in defeat, accepting Axel's arm around him, but remained tense and of course didn't return it. That would mean he was gay for Axel. Like _that_ would ever happen. Maybe a million years from now, if there were no hot babes left on earth. _Maybe_.

Axel grinned again and looked at Roxas – dare he say it, _fondly_; not stalkerish or like a madman – for a moment before staring up at the sky and letting out a whoop, whoop.

Roxas forced himself to look at the big bursts of whistling color in the sky, ignoring his racing heart. After all, he was probably just still paranoid that he was going to fall.

As the fireworks continued on, Roxas had to remind himself that he meant 'fall' as in 'fall off the building.' Of course. Why else would he be falling? Right?

...Right?

* * *

Oh yes, Roxas. Just keep telling yourself that. –cough- MWHAHAHAHA!

LET ME SEEEE. For the next chapter, I'll try to get it out sometime next month (I'm actually very excited to write it, since you finally meet Roxas' father in it –evil laugh-), but WHO KNOWS! My KH muse has taken a huge beating lately since Crisis Core came out and I'm trying to get a PSP and play it. If anyone is obsessed with Zack/Cloud like I am, keep watch, because I'll probably be spewing fics around them soon enough.

But I won't abandon this! I COULD NEVERRR. I HAVE TOO MANY BOY LOVE PLANZ FOR IT, LULZ. 8D

**Reviews **are freaking awesome and make me smile and say, "HAY, I SHOULD WRITE INSTEAD OF STARING AT THE CEILING, YAY."


	6. Date Six: Café

OMG YOU GUYZ

When the heck did it get to be July already!? –ded- I AM SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. ;lakslfkj  
I do have excuses, though! For one thing, CRISIS CORE. PLAY IT NAO. It's freaking UH-MAZE-ING. Trufax.

And I also got a job, which means YAY MONIES, I CAN BUY GAMES AND SHIZ, but it also means OMG I HAVE LESS TIME TO SIT AND WORK ON FICCAGE. AHHHHH! Really, it's madness I was able to get this out at all. xDD

BUT THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR FABULOUS PATIENCE. Have what I hope is an equally fabulous chapter! –dances-

* * *

**Date Six: Café**

**_Thursday, July 5_**

There was seriously no point in keeping a flower shop open in the summer, Roxas thought with a sigh as he hosed some ferns. All plants did was attract bugs. Not that there were many bugs in a town like Twilight Town, but still. Roxas didn't want anything crawling up his arm and maybe hatching something in his ear, like the spider in that one urban legend that always gave him nightmares.

He shook his head. His mind was even less into flowerkeeping than usual today. Something about the...date with Axel last night had messed with him, even more so than usual. It, like...made him unsure. Although as an average student, he was pretty unsure about most things, but one thing that had always made sense was that he hated Axel's guts.

Why was it so hard for him to work up that hatred today?

Roxas frowned and grunted, chucking the hose he'd been carrying somewhere, narrowly missing some ceramic pots. It was probably just because he hadn't seen the redhead yet, that was all. Axel usually pissed him off on sight. Once he saw him, all would be right in his dull little teenage boy world.

...Wait, did that mean he was actually looking _forward_ to seeing Axel!? No way! His brain had betrayed him again!

With another grunt, Roxas made his way to the front of the shop, barely batting an eye when he saw Marluxia schmoozing with (or more likely flirting with) some male customer. Marly and said customer soon walked into the greenhouse out back talking about…flowers. Yeah. Probably. Because it was all about the freaking _flowers_.

Well, at least now with Marluxia out of the way, Roxas could goof off for a bit. He went to the computer and idly started a game of solitaire, hoping that just for once in his life, he could win. Usually he sucked horribly at default computer games. Let's not even get into minesweeper. He was technically still supposed to be paying for this new monitor.

After ten minutes in which he was dangerously close to having to pay for another one, the happy-happy jingly little bell on the door tinkled, signaling someone had come in. Roxas hurriedly closed out solitaire and was met with bright green eyes inches from his face.

"GAHHHH!" he yelled, nearly toppling over backwards. "What the hell!? Are you a freaking _ninja_ or something?"

Axel brightened. "I wish. That'd be awesome." He randomly plunked a Styrofoam cup of...something on the counter. "For you."

Roxas frowned, hesitant to touch it in case it had some sort of weird Axel germ that would cling the two of them together forever. _Ew__._ "What is it?"

"A milkshake!" Axel grinned. "I said yesterday I'd bring you one, but Demyx called me before I left and I got distracted."

"Oh yeah." Roxas was still frowning. "So why'd you bring it now?"

"What, I'm not allowed to do something nice once in awhile?" Axel, in turn, was still grinning. Not that he wasn't _always_ grinning about Roxas, but something about his expression was more suspicious than normal. Although really, when it came to Axel, it was good think of everything he did as suspicious. "And I came to ask you if you wanted to go to Café Twi tonight. For our date, I mean." Axel nudged the cup closer to Roxas. "Have you ever been there?"

"Yes," Roxas replied with so much venom in his voice that it was amazing all of the flowers surrounding him didn't immediately wilt and die at the word. Axel was about to ask what the hell was up with that when Roxas continued, "I'll go, I guess. It's not like I have a choice." Besides, he was quickly finding out that trying to get out of these...dates only ended in more disaster. Maybe if he just rolled with it, the twenty-ninth would come faster.

"Great!" Axel grinned some more, that happy freak. "Now how about some shake?"

Roxas grabbed the cup and stared at it, like he was afraid it was going to jump up and eat him. He raised the straw to his lips. "What flavor is it?" Not that it mattered, of course, he was down with almost any kind of milkshake. Mmmmyes.

"...Paopu flavored."

Roxas let out a scream that would've made Tarzan jealous and chucked the cup across the room with so much force that it was truly a wonder it hadn't made a hole in the wall. Instead, the Styrofoam just bounced off of the wall with a _thwack_ and the lid came off, spewing yellow all over a bunch of peonies.

"That got some distaaaance," Axel said, whistling appreciatively.

The blond was unamused. "What the _hell_ were you trying to do!?"

"I...didn't think you knew the legend?" The redhead's words sounded more like a question than anything.

"Of course I do! Everyone knows that stupid legend!" Roxas stomped across the store and turned on a hose, hoping to rinse away the milkshake goop before Marluxia came out here to see what all the fuss was about. "Get it through your stupid, thick skull that the _last_ thing I want is for my destiny to intertwine with yours!"

Axel shrugged, looking unaffected as always. "It was worth a shot."

Roxas wanted to _blow out the freaking universe's eardrums screaming!!_ Instead, he calmly turned to face Axel and quickly put his thumb over the hose, turning it into a deadly spray of doom, and aimed it towards the redhead.

Axel put his hands up and tried to escape the water to no avail. "Roxas!" he cried, flailing around like the fruitcake he was. "S-Stop it! BLURRRRG!"

Oh, please. Like he was going to stop. Where was the fun in that?

...Well, until your boss came out from the greenhouse, looking more pissed off that he had, oh, three days ago at a certain young redhead.

"What the _hell_ is going on here!?" Marluxia yelled. Roxas immediately stopped the hose and pointed at Axel.

"He did it."

Marly snarled and turned to Axel, whose eyes had gotten so wide that it was amazing they hadn't popped out of his head and rolled right on out the door like meatballs. Marluxia grabbed a ceramic pot and hurled it towards the redhead. "OUT OF MY STORE!" he yelled. The pot shattered at his feet with a deafening noise, and Roxas wondered for a moment what the harassment laws in Twilight Town were.

Wait – why was his brain once again automatically trying to defend Axel!? IT WAS AGAINST HIM! CONSPIRACY! He shook his head vigorously, trying to get the little pro-Axel being out of his brain and just looked at Marluxia, who was still yelling.

Axel finally got a clue – for once in his life – and hightailed it out of there. The two left in the flower shop just stared at the pieces of the broken pot for a moment before Marluxia got a broom and began to sweep. Roxas just stood there, looking as though steam was about to spew out of his ears at any moment.

Marluxia frowned. "What?"

"YOU FORGOT TO BAN HIM AGAIN!"

"...Crap!"

--

Roxas was still angry when he clocked out for the day, still angry when he got home, still angry when he ate half a bag of potato chips in front of the TV, and still angry when he put on some normal clothes for the...date tonight. He wouldn't have been surprised if he'd suddenly been admitted into the dictionary for 'ANGER' at this rate. It would have a picture of him completely bald because he'd be tearing his hair out like mad. Maybe he could auction it off the internet. But then again, who would buy his hair?

He heaved a sigh like Hurricane Bob and slapped on his favorite checkered wristband. He hoped this night would go faster if he just went with it, considering he knew the patrons of Café Twi _quite_ well. Maybe none of them would be working tonight and he could get out of there without any damage done to his brain.

...Yeah, and maybe that meteor would finally fall on Axel.

He trudged downstairs after he got dressed like he was going out for community service instead of a...date. Well, considering it was _Axel_, it pretty much _was_ community service. The redhead had to be some kind of delinquent, with what having freaky tattoos on his freaky face and buying fireworks illegally and getting milkshakes splattered all over a store like brains in a zombie movie.

To his surprise, his mother was actually up and out of her Zen Den, puttering around the kitchen and making tea. She smiled a little at Roxas when he came into the room. "Have a date with your boyfriend tonight?"

_Snap_. The top of the wooden chair Roxas had been holding onto cracked under his fist of fury.

His mom stirred some sugar into her tea. "Oh, dear," she said, not sounding the least bit concerned. "I liked that chair."

"HE. IS. NOT. MY. BOYFRIEND." And there was that anger, back tenfold.

"Just remember to wear a condom."

"WHY WOULD I DO THAT!?"

She shrugged. "I like condom-free sex as much as the next person, but sometimes they're necessary. And don't forget, you can still get diseases during foreplay too – "

"MOM!" Roxas yelled, breaking the top of the chair some more. That thing was just going to be a stool at this rate. "AXEL IS NOT MY BOYFRIEND! HE'S JUST AN IDIOT I'M FORCED TO BE AROUND FOR THE NEXT TWENTY-FOUR DAYS! I HOPE HE FALLS INTO A GARBAGE DISPOSAL!"

His mom was still talking like the conversation was about the freaking _weather_. "Now, dear, I'm aware of the mechanics of lovemaking between two males, so if you need any help – "

"AHHHH!" Roxas was ready for a full-fledged temper tantrum when the doorbell rang. He immediately raced for it since anything would be better than his mother's 'advice', even if it was death at his door.

"Hey, Roxas!"

Or Axel. Close enough.

The blond's shoulders slumped so much it was a wonder he didn't fall over. "Axel."

Axel was grinning like a loon, as usual. Honestly, when was he ever _not_ looking completely creepy and stalkery? "Ready to go?"

"No." He turned to yell towards the general vicinity of the kitchen. "MOM! I'M LEAVING!"

She magically appeared – maybe she'd finally learned to teleport or levitate or whatever it was all that meditating she did was supposed to do – and smiled at the two of them. Roxas just frowned. Since when did his mom care about his...uh...social life?

"Oh? Where are you boys off to?" She sounded _way_ too innocent, like she hadn't been talking about buttsex only seconds before. Roxas shuddered.

"We're off to Café Twi!" Axel said gaily (duh). He swung an arm around Roxas' shoulders, who pushed it off like it was made of some kind of burning-poison-doom-thing.

"Café Twi?" She cocked her head at Roxas, looking a bit more confused than normal. "Are you sure, honey?"

"I kind of have to," he muttered. If he denied Axel this date, he'd never hear the end of it. _And_ it would be the end of ice cream. NOOOOO.

"But..."

"Yeah, anyway, we've gotta go, bye," he said in one big rush, fleeing out the door. He didn't want his mother to talk about penises in front of Axel, or the redhead might get some ideas involving lube and condoms and spit and oh geez, why was he even _thinking_ this at all!?

He heard Axel said goodbye to his mother and quickly catch up to him, unfortunately not running into any poles or getting hit by cars or stray baseballs. Nope, it was just Axel in all of his freaky glory, gaying up his life.

How weird. 'Gay' meant 'happy' and yet he was the poster child for 'angry.' Or maybe 'pissed off blond kid that wanted this extra redheaded appendage to go the hell away and burn in a fiery mosh pit.' Or something like that.

"So! You excited?" Axel asked, actually having the sense not to put his arm around Roxas again. Good job Axel, you have just won the right to keep that limb.

"No."

"Aww, you should be! How could you go to this place and not love it?"

"I have my reasons." Roxas was still seething.

Axel totally noticed this, and like any complete asshole would, called him upon it. "Y'know, you should stop being so pissed off all the time. You'll get gray hairs."

Roxas positively _glared_ at him, almost tripping over a crack in the sidewalk in the process. "Why the hell do you _think_ I'm pissed off!?" he yelled. He wished the café and the people eating at it weren't suddenly in few. There were too many witnesses for his new KILL AXEL plan.

Axel shrugged with a grin, leading the blond into the café. That jerk. Of _course_ he knew why Roxas was irritated with him. What an ass.

They walked into the café – well, Axel walked and Roxas scuffed his feet behind him, looking at the floor – and quickly found a table off to the side. On the plus side, it was in a dark corner and no one would be able to see them easily, which meant that there was a good chance Roxas could get through this without running into anyone he knew. On the minus side, it was in a dark corner and no one would be able to see them easily, which meant Axel might take that as initiative to get a little free with his hands.

Then again, Roxas did have a butter knife in his hands. Heh, heh, heh.

Before he could stab a pair of certain green eyes out, though, a server appeared and took their orders. Roxas didn't even know what he blurted out – he knew the whole menu by heart – and Axel took his sweet ass time before finally making a selection. Roxas gripped the knife tighter.

"So when have you been here before?" Axel randomly asked.

"I'd prefer not to talk about it," Roxas replied. Or think about it. Or even remember that this place was in his existence.

"Aw, too bad." Axel winked, managing to look completely stupid. "Because if you don't want to talk, there are certainly plenty of other uses for your mouth."

"...Like eating!" Roxas had never been so glad to see a plate of food in front of him, and considering that he was a teenage boy...well, that was saying a lot. He dug into his meal with the intensity of a starved man, barely noticing when the lights of the café were dimmed. He nearly choked, however, when someone grabbed a mic and stood in the raised little performing area that was usually reserved for local bands and such. However...

"Tonight's performer is an old favorite!" The announcer said, sounding totally giddy. "Please give a round of applause to Twilight Town's very own...Misssssssss Roxanne!"

Roxas spit out his drink on Axel, himself, and the dude sitting a table away. He stood up, totally ready to leave, but Axel foiled his plans once again by grabbing his wrist and yanking him back down.

"Aw man, I love this guy!" he laughed, completely unaware of Roxas's frantic eyes darting around the room. Maybe he could crawl under some tables and escape down the garbage shoot. Or just run through the windows and hope they were made of that sugar glass they used in movie stunts, but it would still be cool if they weren't because _anything_ would be better than this.

"Axel, can we go!?" he said, trying in vain to stand up again, but Axel's grip had become like freaking _iron_.

"What?" It was impossible to hear anything over the roar of the crowd.

"CAN WE – "

He stopped yelling when the performer – Miss Roxanne – stepped onto the platform, microphone in hand. With big blue eyes enhanced by layers of matching shadow, curly blond hair, and a sparkly outfit to die for, it was very easy to imagine that this person was not a drag queen.

Until he opened his mouth, that was. The voice was quite clearly deep and male, something no one seemed to care about since 'Miss Roxanne' had a very good singing voice. Definitely enough to impress the patrons at small town café, and more than enough to have him performing in places around the world with his wife and young son before finally settling down in said small town.

He was _fuming_. No wonder Axel had wanted to go down to the café tonight – he must have _known_ that his father was going to be performing tonight.

Roxas managed to wrench his wrist from Axel's and stood up, unfortunately misplacing his foot and stepping on the tablecloth to his table, dumping his and Axel's dinner on him with a loud crash.

Then the world stopped.

At least that's what it _felt_ like. The crash had been so loud that the music stopped, the singing stopped, the clinking of glasses at the bar stopped, even the freaking _crickets_ had stopped.

Axel was the first one to make any noise. He burst out laughing and helped Roxas up at the exact moment a spotlight shone on the two of them. Roxas froze, his eyes wide.

Miss Roxanne widened his/her eyes and gasped happily. "Well, look at that everyone!" he/she cried into the microphone. "My son finally has a boyfriend!"

As everyone in the café – the freaking _world_ - made cooing noises, Roxas did the only thing he could do in this kind of situation: he grabbed a nearby candle, set a tablecloth on fire, and turned to run far, faaaaar away. Like maybe to the Underworld. Even Hades himself would be better than dealing with his drag queen father thinking he was gay for a flaming fruitcake.

He assumed Axel had stayed behind to put the fire out – or maybe drool at it – because nobody followed him home for once. He stomped up the stairs, glad that his mother wasn't around, and went to his room, slamming the door and flopping himself down on the bed.

He contemplated on turning on some loud, screaming music, but getting up required effort. He had never been so...so...embarrassed and _infuriated_ at once. Half of the freaking town went to Twi Café in the evenings! People would be stopping him on the streets asking when he turned gay! And after the month was over and he got Axel out of his life forever, people would be trying to hook him up with guys! He didn't even like guys! HE LIKED BOOBS! BOOOOOOBS!

Roxas had no idea how long he was lying there, drowning in his own emo misery, but eventually he heard the front door slam, indicating that his father had come home from his performance. After another few minutes, there was a knock at his door. He thought about nailing his door shut, but again...effort.

"Come in," he said weakly.

His father swung the door open. He'd taken off the wig, but was still wearing the makeup and the sequined dress. "Your mother told me what's been going on," he said.

"Uh..."

He sat on the bed next to Roxas's feet. "And I have some advice."

Roxas sat up a little. Well, this might actually be helpful. His father was a lot more..._here_ than his mother, at least brain-wise. "What?"

"Use a condom."

"...GAHHHHHHHHH."

_Axel's Current Likeability (on a scale of 1 -10): -20_

* * *

And as several people pointed out, I forgot the Likeability Scale last time! –LE GASP- Last chapter it was negative nine. Oh dear. xD

I FREAKING LOVE YOU GUYS, FOR SERIOUS. –GLOMPS FOR YOU ALL- Hopefully the next one doesn't take this long. BUT THE CLACK. My brain is invaded with it. xD

**REVIEWS **make me squee out loud and shower the world with cookies – and who doesn't love cookies!? BWHAHAHAHA. ;D


End file.
